Chest wall reconstructions are mainly needed after surgical treatment of tumors or trauma. The costal cartilage is part of the chest wall, connecting sternum and ribs. The currently existing rib prostheses made of Titanium or PEEK were found lacking the costal cartilage portion, causing unsatisfactory functional rehabilitation of breath. This study proposed a newly bionic methodology for designing a costal cartilage prosthesis using a wavy elastic structure. By changing the design parameters, the mechanical properties can be accurately adjusted. Finite element analysis was carried out for the optimization of the prostheses. Then the prostheses were fabricated by fused deposition modelling manufacturing technology, using PEEK. Mechanical tests were carried out to determine the elastic modulus of the prostheses. The equivalent modulus ranged 0.5–17.3 MPa, and the tensile strength ranged 0.7–8.3 MPa. The results indicated that the mechanical behavior of the designed prostheses were close to those of the natural costal cartilage and that the wavy elastic structure was a reasonable choice for designing a costal cartilage prosthesis. Therefore, the designed PEEK costal cartilage prostheses have the potential as replacement of the natural costal cartilage with better breathing function for the patient undergoing chest wall reconstruction.

在对肿瘤或外伤进行手术治疗后，主要需要重建胸壁。肋软骨是胸壁的一部分，连接胸骨和肋骨。发现当前存在的由钛或聚醚醚酮制成的肋骨假体缺少肋软骨部分，导致呼吸功能恢复不理想。这项研究提出了一种新的仿生方法，用于使用波浪形弹性结构设计肋软骨假体。通过更改设计参数，可以准确地调整机械性能。进行了有限元分析以优化假体。然后使用PEEK通过融合沉积建模制造技术制造假体。进行机械测试以确定假体的弹性模量。等效模量范围为0.5–17。3 MPa，抗拉强度范围为0.7-8.3 MPa。结果表明，所设计的假体的力学行为与天然肋软骨的力学行为相近，并且波浪形弹性结构是设计肋软骨假体的合理选择。因此，设计的PEEK肋软骨假体具有潜力，可替代正在接受重建胸壁的患者的具有更好呼吸功能的天然肋软骨。